Rutgers to eliminate men's swimming

That is really to bad about this. I wonder how they determine what sports get cut? I swam at the pool at the 2003 LC Nationals and it was a nice sports complex. The only thing I remember that was weird about the meet was the confusion to find the place once you were on campus because of all the construction. As a swimmer at the meet, we were very lucky because we were only within miles of the power grid failure and that would have probably cancelled the meet mid way thru. The coach there (Chuck Warner) wrote a great book about swimming called "Four Champions and One Gold Medal" about 7 years ago and I believe you can still get it. Its a great book about the time when the USA had the greatest distance swimmers in the World. At least they still have the Women's program. www.scarletknights.com/.../warner.htm

Show me a football program with a .720 win average and I'll show you a coach bound for the pro's. Amazing they would whack the guy, but then they get "coaching" for much less out of the assistants. Unfortunately this is swimming, so .720 gets you whacked when they pull the plug on your funding.

The drain continues, this is what happens when a football player-turned-TV-executive takes over: Chuck Warner Will Not Be Retained As Head Coach of Rutgers Swimming National search to begin immediately Posted on 6/15/2010 5:00:18 PM PISCATAWAY, N.J. (June 15, 2010) – Rutgers Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Tim Pernetti announced today that Chuck Warner will not be retained as head coach of the women’s swimming and diving team at Rutgers University. Warner’s contract, which expires on June 30, 2010, will not be renewed for the 2010-11 season. Assistant coaches Fred Woodruff and Jessica Barnes will handle all interim coaching duties while a national search is conducted. “I would like to thank Chuck for the years of service and the contributions he has provided to Rutgers andour swimming program,” said Pernetti. “We will begin the search immediately for a new head coach.” Warner compiled a 77-30 (.720) regular season record with the women’s team in dual meet competition over his tenure. A four-time BIG EAST Coach of the Year, Warner led the Scarlet Knights to a fifth-place showing or better at each of the last 11 conference championships. From 1997-2007, he also coached the men’s team to a 77-39 (.664) overall mark. Warner was introduced in 1997 as the fifth head coach in the history of the RU swimming program (88 years).

Blame Texas. Athletic department budgets are up 35 percent the last few years and it is becoming harder to keep up. The very few big time programs are collecting a larger and larger portion of the revenue adding to the problem. The current path has an inevitable conclusion. In 20 years there will be 10-20 division 1 swim programs. Two things have to change to stop this: 1 revenue sharing. The reason the big 12 has 3 swim teams is because Texas' football program makes so much more money than all the other programs in the conference that the others have to scrap swimming to compete with Texas on the football field. 2. NCAA needs to implement strict salary and staffing guidelines.

For some reason I thought that the RU mens swimming team had already been cut, but this is still sad news. As my graduate alma mater, I will add this to the list of reasons not to donate another red cent to the school. On the positive side, their football program HAS been improving over the last several years, whereas it had been a point of shame for nearly decades... Having said that, I know that Rutgers' state funding continues to get severely slashed so I'm not surprised they cut athletics to the bone. Also, I'm not shocked that football and corresponding women's Title IX sports survive (for now). Football can be a source of alumni pride and thus a source of alumni funding. The women's Title IX sports survive in order to retain the football program. That's nothing against Title IX. If it weren't for that statute, there wouldn't be any women's swimming at Rutgers either so good for it. Too bad about their coach. I hope he finds greener pastures at a USS team or a DIII school.

Blame Texas. Athletic department budgets are up 35 percent the last few years and it is becoming harder to keep up. The very few big time programs are collecting a larger and larger portion of the revenue adding to the problem. The current path has an inevitable conclusion. In 20 years there will be 10-20 division 1 swim programs. Two things have to change to stop this: 1 revenue sharing. The reason the big 12 has 3 swim teams is because Texas' football program makes so much more money than all the other programs in the conference that the others have to scrap swimming to compete with Texas on the football field. 2. NCAA needs to implement strict salary and staffing guidelines. Although I am uncertain how to fix this - I agree that Texas is the best example of what is going wrong with college sports. They have the biggest budget (~$140M) and their so-called drive for excellence is fueled by money. They pay Mack Brown $5.1M per year and gave him a huge raise above what his contract states - even though he is not be recruited to go anywhere. Rick Barnes makes $2M. Gail Goestenkors (women's bbal) makes $1M. Texas shows absolutely no interest in driving costs down. All they do is try to distance themselves from everyone else. Because football is so expensive to compete in - all the other schools are forced to allocate ever increasing amounts of $$ to their football programs. That is why Texas Tech, OU, etc. haven't had swimming programs in many years. The link below is pretty interesting. Eddie Reese isn't paid very much compared to his peers at Texas. I suspect Eddie's total comp is greater (swim camps?). www.texastribune.org/.../

Funding for UT, of course, caused the departure of Nebraska and Colorado from the Big 12. The conference's funding formula favored schools on TV a lot - meaning schools with fewer major metros got less money. And UT would have joined the Pac 10, except at the last minute, it decided it could make more money by creating its own television network (a la the Big Ten Network) and cramming a new funding formula down the throats of what's left of the Big 12. Mizzou and KU got screwed, big time. UT will have the rest of the athletic world in its rearview mirror for a long, long time.